Israel prepares for ceasefire but threatens full-scale invasion

Israel has been preparing for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza to allow
humanitarian aid to be delivered.

The government appointed a cabinet official to oversee relief efforts as progress was reported in talks to get Hamas to accept an immediate truce.

Israeli leaders signalled they were prepared to act unilaterally but increased the pressure on Hamas to capitulate by warning the lull would almost certainly be followed by a full-scale invasion by troops and reservists once the immediate needs of civilians were met.

It came as officials in Gaza said the death toll in the conflict had climbed above 1,000 after another day of heavy fighting in the Palestinian enclave.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, called for a renewed push to end the 19-day conflict during a visit to Cairo.

"My call is an immediate end to violence in Gaza and then to the Israeli military offensive and a halt to rocket attacks by Hamas," he said after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"Negotiations need to be intensified to provide arrangements and guarantees in order to sustain an endurable ceasefire and calm."

Officials involved in the Franco-Egyptian efforts to secure a ceasefire agreement said that further rounds of negotiations would be needed after Hamas demanded more concessions, including a timetable for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Despite the obstacles raised by Hamas, Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said that fighting could be brought to an end. "The outlines of a ceasefire have begun to appear, even if we still have to face serious obstacles," he said.

Israel's Social Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog was appointed to oversee efforts to meet emergency needs stemming from the conflict, a key role in the event of a truce. He said Israel would upgrade its efforts to assist a population that had been co-opted as human shields by Hamas.

"We need to get that infrastructure in place for delivery and flow of supplies that will be upgraded in scale in the next few days," Mr Herzog said."We will do anything to ease the pressure on the civilian population."

Conditions are dire for more than 35,000 Gazans who have been forced into temporary shelters and thousands more residents in nine suburbs that have been cordoned off by military operations.

One third of the population is believed to have no access to drinking water and more than half are cut off from electricity supplies.

Major Peter Lerner, an Israeli spokesman for aid co-ordination, said that shipments into Gaza were already running ahead of figures for some months of last year. He said: "In the two-and-a-half weeks since the operation began 1,000 trucks have entered Gaza compared with 1,300 trucks for all of November and December."

But Gaza was already effectively under blockade by Israel since Nov 4. Aid agencies said the normal flow of goods to meet the Strip's needs was 500 trucks a day.

"It is incredibly difficult to get help into Gaza," said Conor O'Loughlin of Caritas. "The humanitarian window of three hours is just too short. Everyone is fighting each other to get their supplies through."

Médecins Sans Frontières said its staff was trapped in Gaza and that it could not get fresh medical staff into the area as a result of Israel's restrictions.

Israel said that 12 rockets were fired from Gaza on Wednesday but that its forces had destroyed nine rocket launching sites in attacks on 20 Hamas targets. One air strike targeting an arms cache buried in a cemetery was reported to have spread body parts and rotting flesh over a wide area.

Three rockets were fired into Israel from Hizbollah-controlled territory in southern Lebanon. It was a second incident since the start of the war and drew immediate retaliatory mortar fire from Israel.